Law Commons^™

The Right To Trial By Jury Shall Remain Inviolate: Jury Trials In Civil Actions In Georgia’S Courts, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

Trials, though rare, “shape almost every aspect of procedure,” and the jury trial is a distinctive feature of civil litigation in the United States. The Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ‘preserves’ the right to jury trial “[i]n suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars.” Even though this amendment does not apply to the states, courts in the states “honor the right to the extent it is created in their constitutions or local statutes.”

The Georgia Constitution provides that “[t]he right to trial by jury shall remain inviolate,” and Georgia’s appellate courts have shown …

State Constitutional Law: Standing To Litigate Public Rights In Georgia Courts, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

State courts interpreting state constitutions face the recurring issue of how much weight to afford Supreme Court of the United States precedent addressing comparable questions under the United States Constitution. At one end of the spectrum, many state courts routinely engage in what federal Judge Jeffrey Sutton calls “lockstepping,” importing federal doctrine wholesale into state decisional law. For a court engaged in lockstepping, concepts like freedom of speech or equal protection of the laws under a state constitution mean whatever the U.S. Supreme Court interprets them to mean under the federal Constitution, even if the state provision differs in potentially …

The Nature Of Standing, Matthew I. Hall, Christian Turner

Scholarly Works

Standing to raise a claim before a judicial tribunal is notoriously contested. Federal courts during the last century developed an increasingly rule-like and rigid doctrine around the concept of private injury to govern access to the federal forum. Some states followed the federal lead. Others have created important exceptions, and even in federal courts, issues like organizational standing, legislative standing, and standing of qui tam relators have proved controversial. We describe a broader taxonomy of agenda control rules, of which standing rules are a special case, to understand why and how courts and other institutions govern their choices of what …

Understanding The Gap Between Law And Practice: Barriers And Alternatives To Tailoring Adult Guardianship Orders, Eleanor Lanier

Scholarly Works

An overwhelming majority of state laws governing adult guardianship require an inquiry into whether less restrictive alternatives may be available/appropriate and, where guardianship is necessary, that guardianship orders be designed to maximize theindependence of the person subject to the guardianship. However, the best available data indicates that most guardianship orders are plenary," removing rights on a wholesale basis rather than individually tailoring the guardianship. To many observers, the imposition of plenary guardianship contradicts the unambiguous statutory language in most states favoring a tailored approach that implements guardianships to maximize an individual's independence and autonomy.

The literature is rife with examples …

Droit De Suite, Copyright’S First Sale Doctrine And Preemption Of State Law, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

The primary focus of this article is whether California’s forty-year old droit de suite statute; the California Resale Royalty Act (CRRA), is subject to federal preemption under the Copyright Act. This issue is now being litigated in the Ninth Circuit, and this article concludes that the CRRA is preempted under section 301(a) of the Copyright Act and under the Supremacy Clause because it at odds with copyright’s well-established first sale doctrine.

The basic idea of droit de suite is that each time an artist’s work is resold by a dealer or auction house, the artist is entitled to a royalty, …

Taser Time: Electroshock Injustice Coming Soon To Athens-Clarke County, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

On Sunday, Apr. 19, 2015, an article in the daily newspaper in Athens announced that Athens-Clarke County Police have already received a shipment of 145 tasers and will soon begin using them on the citizenry of this county.

Although taser electroshock devices are technically classified as nonlethal weapons, this means only that their purpose is to avoid fatalities, not that they are incapable of resulting in fatalities. Use of a nonlethal weapon may and sometimes does result in death or serious injury. In recent years, at least 600 Americans, perhaps as many as 1,000, have died suddenly, unexpectedly, or shortly …

Federal - State Tax Coordination: What Congress Should Or Should Not Do -- Testimony Of Walter Hellerstein On Tax Reform: What It Means For State And Local Tax And Fiscal Policy, Before The Committee On Finance, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

Testimony of Walter Hellerstein, Francis Shackelford Professor of Taxation Distinguished Research Professor, before the Committee on Finance, hearing on Tax Reform: What It Means for State and Local Tax and Fiscal Policy, United States Senate, April 25, 2012.

Standing Of Intervenor-Defendants In Public Law Litigation, Matthew I. Hall

Scholarly Works

Unless the plaintiff has a personal stake in the outcome, Article III of the United States Constitution requires federal courts to dismiss a plaintiff’s claim for lack of standing. That much is clearly established by decades of precedent. Less understood, however, is the degree to which Article III also requires defendants to possess a personal stake. The significance of defendant standing often goes unnoticed in case law and scholarship, because the standing of the defendant in most lawsuits is readily apparent:any defendant against whom the plaintiff seeks a remedy has a personal interest in defending against the plaintiff’s claim.

But …

The Georgia Greenway Guidebook: A Tool For Governments, Communities, And Individuals, Christine Clay, Kathleen Nelson, Katie Biszko

Land Use Clinic

The purpose of this guidebook is to provide a tool for local governments, community organizations and individuals that are considering launching or reinvigorating a greenway development project.

Section II of this guidebook explains the concept and use of greenways, as well as many of important steps and considerations for developing greenway projects from inception to completion.

Potential greenway corridors in Georgia are explored in Section III, such as riparian corridors, interstate and highway rights-of-way, railway corridors, fuel pipeline easements, and transmission line easements along high-tension power lines.

Part IV explores aspects of greenway project development, including the need to create …

Rhetorical Federalism: The Value Of State-Based Dissent To Federal Health Reform, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

This Article makes the affirmative case for the widespread trend of state resistance to the recently enacted, comprehensive federal health reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, or ACA. A significant number of states have engaged in various forms of objection to the new federal laws, including filing lawsuits against the federal government, enacting laws providing that ACA will not apply to residents of the state, and refusing to cooperate with implementing the new laws. This Article identifies reasons why those actions should not be disregarded simply as Tea Party antics or election-year gamesmanship but instead …

State Constitutionalism And The Right To Health Care, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

This Article examines state constitutions and health care rights. Notably, close to a third of states’ constitutions recognize health while the U.S. Constitution contains no reference. Ample scholarly commentary exists on the absence of a right to health care under the U.S. Constitution but little attention has been paid to state constitutional law. This Article begins by explaining the absence of a federal right and the rationale for looking to state constitutional protections for health. The Article then provides a comprehensive survey of state constitutional provisions and judicial decisions enforcing or interpreting them. The survey reveals certain common themes and …

The State Of The States : Online Resources For State Legal Research, Sharon Bradley

Presentations

Finding state and local laws can be challenging. Here are some best-bet websites to help find state and local law online.

Kyoto Comes To Georgia: How International Environmental Initiatives Foster Sustainable Commerce In Small Town America, Peter A. Appel, T. Rick Irvin, Julie M. Mcentire, J. Chris Rabon

Scholarly Works

This Article posits that in response to adoption of Kyoto Protocol targets by governments and multi-national corporations overseas that comprise significant portions of the global economy as well as global financial markets, businesses and state and local governments in the U.S. are also being driven by necessity to undertake sustainable commerce initiatives. Businesses in the EU and other Kyoto-compliant regions that have implemented sustainable commerce programs now require overseas vendors and suppliers-including those in the U.S.-to implement their own sustainable commerce initiatives as a condition of approved supplier status. New EU environmental regulations developed in part to meet Kyoto-specified emissions …

Federalism And Accountability: State Attorneys General, Regulatory Litigation, And The New Federalism, Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

This Comment will examine how one particular state institution, state attorneys general (SAGs), has operated within a unique set of institutional and political constraints to create state-based regulation with nationwide impact in policy areas including consumer protection, antitrust, environmental regulation, and securities regulation. This state-based regulation casts doubt on one of the principle rationales advanced in the Supreme Court's anticommandeering line of cases for limiting federal power; namely, that such a move enhances electoral accountability, a concept central to our democracy. If in the absence of federal regulation a series of narrowly accountable state-based actors can create nationwide regulation in …

Failure To Connect: The Massachusetts Plan For Individual Health Insurance, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

This Article briefly describes the key features of the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act, focusing particularly on the Connector. It then offers preliminary thoughts on the expected effect of that mechanism for creating quality, affordable health insurance products for individuals. Observers anticipate that commercial insurers will offer scant coverage and high-premium, high-deductible plans through the Connector, which coverage ultimately may be neither more affordable than products currently or more helpful to covering the cost of health care than no coverage at all. If the Connector fails to facilitate the individual insurance mandate, Massachusetts's promise of universal coverage may begin to …

Cooperative Federalism And Healthcare Reform: The Medicare Part D 'Clawback' Example, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard

Scholarly Works

This symposium article recounts recent litigation by several states over a provision of the Medicare Modernization Act Part D prescription drug benefit: The clawback, which requires states to pay the a potentially substantial portion of new federal program. I then examine the unique federalism implications of the clawback for ongoing state and federal health reform initiatives.

In spring 2006, several states petitioned the United States Supreme Court for original jurisdiction to hear a challenge to one provision of the new Medicare Part D prescription drug law. The federal government, while taking over prescription drug coverage for dually eligible beneficiaries, required …

The Status Of Administrative Agencies Under The Georgia Constitution, David E. Shipley

Scholarly Works

This Article discusses the place of administrative agencies under the Georgia Constitution. The rules of the Georgia Supreme Court on these issues, like the comparable rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court, make excellent reading for anyone interested in Georgia law, government, politics, and history. Most of the decisions surveyed in this Article are correct, but not necessarily for the reasons given by the Georgia Supreme Court. Some of the opinions offer comprehensive treatises on sections of the Georgia Constitution and aspects of administrative law, while others reach conclusions without much explanation. Some results are at odds with prior decisions that …

The Spirit Of Serrano: Past, Present And Future, Anne Dupre, John Dayton

Scholarly Works

A decades-long school funding revolution continues in the United States. The litigation sparked by the Supreme Court of California's 1971 decision in Serrano v. Priest continues to reshape the legal, political, and educational landscape in the United States, affecting the lives of children, parents, educators, and taxpayers throughout the nation. Serrano-inspired lawsuits have transformed school funding policies nationwide, resulting in billions of dollars in new funding and a notable redistribution of resources among school districts. Serrano-inspired litigation has changed public schools in many states to a degree second only to the transformation that followed Brown v. Board of …

Local Government Liability Litigation: Numerical Nuances, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

Georgia local government law not only encompasses a forbidding substantive expanse; it occupies a dominating presence before the Georgia appellate courts. Those courts are called to resolve all manner of litigation erupting from citizen exposure to government at its first level. The controversies feature issues both recurring and unique; they represent nothing less than the essence of law in daily life. An annual effort to chronicle those controversies over a good number of years reveals two (among many) distinct facets. First, local government liability has consistently dwarfed all other litigated issues; and second, this pervading characteristic emits no signs of …

Education Finance Litigation: A Review Of Recent High Court Decisions And Their Likely Impact On Future Litigation, Anne Dupre, John Dayton, Christine Kiracofe

Scholarly Works

This article addresses the impact that school funding litigation has had in shaping public schools across the United States. It serves as an update to a 2001 article titled Serrano and It’s Progeny: An Analysis of 30 Years of School Funding Litigation, which reviewed school funding litigation since the Serrano v. Priest decision. This article updates that research by providing brief reviews of the most recent and significant school funding litigation decisions, including the most recent decisions in Claremont v. Governor, James v. Alabama Coalition for Equality, Tennessee Small School Systems v. McWhorter, Lake View v. Huckabee, DeRolph v. …

Tort Claims Against The State: Georgia's Compensation System, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

The State's immunity from liability for the torts of its officers and employees claims legendary status in American law. Indeed, immunity's history now looms as daunting as the doctrine itself. As with most epochal accounts, this history varies according to version--versions, assuredly, for many tastes. In sum, nevertheless, the offerings attest to a legal principle persisting as (at least) the point of departure in most jurisdictions. Anchored in both history and rationale, therefore, state tort immunity long dominated the law of the United States. Over time, indeed, the doctrine's durability proved unequal only to that of its critics. Those critics …

Business Subsidies And The Dormant Commerce Clause, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

In this Article, I seek to respond to the Court's overture with a treatment of of subsidies under the dormant Commerce Clause that moves progressively from the general to the specific. Part I examines key Supreme Court cases to show that the basic question of whether state business subsidies are constitutional remains open and important. Part II then turns to how that question should be resolved, focusing on whether subsidies are fairly distinguishable from ostensibly equivalent, and concededly unlawful, discriminatory tax relief. The thrust of Part II is that both precedent and policy support the traditional, pre-West Lynn Creamer" view …

Commerce Clause Restraints On State Tax Incentives, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

The states' provision of tax incentives designed to encourage economic development within their borders has long been a feature of the American legislative landscape. Today every state provides tax incentives as an inducement to local industrial location and expansion. Indeed, scarcely a day goes by without some state offering yet another tax incentive to spur economic development, often in an effort to attract a particular enterprise to the state.

The debate over the efficacy and wisdom of state tax and other business incentives is intense and important, as other articles in this Symposium plainly reveal. My purpose here, however, is …

Federal Reserve: History, Purposes And Functions - An Analysis, Mukunda Lakshamanarao

LLM Theses and Essays

On December 23, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act. With this law, Congress established a central banking system which would enable the world’s most powerful industrial nation to manage its money and credit more effectively than ever before. The political and legislative struggle to create the Federal Reserve System was long and often bitter, and this final product in 1913 was the result of a carefully crafted and somewhat tenuous political compromise between national and regional powers. Since its founding, the Federal Reserve System has evolved to meet the needs of a changing financial system …

Testing Two Assumptions About Federalism And Tort Reform, Thomas A. Eaton, Susette M. Talarico

Scholarly Works

In, 1996 both the United States House of Representatives and Senate passed legislation that, if enacted, would preempt state tort laws in significant ways. Why would a Congress otherwise apparently committed to vesting states with greater policymaking autonomy call for federal control of tort law?

Tort policymaking has traditionally been done at the state level. One assumption underlying this distribution of power is that states are better able than the national government to fashion tort rules appropriate for local conditions and circumstances. In other words, states are thought to have a special competence in crafting tort rules responsive to local …

Balancing Federalism And Free Markets: Toward Renewed Antitrust Policing, Privatization, Or A "State Supervision" Screen For Municipal Market Participant Conduct, James Ponsoldt

Scholarly Works

The past decade has witnessed an historic rejection of state control of markets in eastern Europe. Expansion of domestic antitrust immunity policy toward municipal businesses based upon federalism concerns, however, which occurred during the same period, has fostered autonomous governmental control of markets. The judicial application of the Parker doctrine to local government has tended to contradict the premise underlying several generations of U.S. foreign policy designed to support emerging competitive market economies outside the country. Academic analysis of the Parker doctrine during the 1980s was heated and creative. A number of commentators, with varying viewpoints, have addressed the bases …

Binding Contracts In Georgia Local Government Law: Configurations Of Codification, R. Perry Sentell Jr.

Scholarly Works

The potential for creating uncertainty looms as a primary and ever-present problem in the codification process. A dominant concern is the fear the unintended statutory changes--or, worse still, the quandary of whether what appears to be such a change was truly intended--may result. The perplexing issues emanating from that quandary can considerably dissipate the benefits of progressive statutory codification. For purely illustrative purposes, attention might be called to the present plight of an historic precept in Georgia local government law. That precept unflinchingly condemns a local governing authority's efforts to commit its successors to a given course of governmental action. …

To Defer Or Not To Defer: A Study Of Federal Circuit Court Deference To District Court Rulings On State Law, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

Federal courts of appeals often grant special deference to district court rulings on matters of state law. This practice is important. It is also ill-conceived. This Article explores this "rule of deference." Section I considers the roots and reach of the rule. Together with the Appendices to this Article, it seeks to detail for practitioners, commentators, and judges the way the rule operates in the courts. The remaining sections of this Article consider the wisdom of the rule of deference. Section II argues that the rule lacks a sound rationale and Section III urges that the rule has bad effects …

Means, Ends And Original Intent: A Response To Charles Cooper, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

Charles Cooper believes that the ninth amendment should be read at once more broadly and more narrowly than it is today. In his view, the intent of the Framers was to cabin the power of the federal government. By taking note in the ninth amendment of rights other than those enumerated in the first eight, they sought to ensure that the national government would not exercise powers beyond those listed in the Constitution. Since the aim of the ninth amendment was to keep the federal government one of limited power, it is inappropriate to apply the amendment to the states, …

First Things Last: Amendomania And State Bills Of Rights, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Scholarly Works

State bills of rights preceded the federal Bill of Rights. From June 1776, when the Virginia Declaration of Rights (the first state bill of rights) was adopted, until December 1791, when the federal Bill of Rights was ratified, eight states each adopted a bill of rights as a separate part of their state constitution. State constitutional rights existed even before there as a United States Constitution. Furthermore, the federal Bill of Rights contains provisions derived from earlier state bills of rights. Indeed, virtually every guarantee in the federal Bill of Rights can be traced to a similar guarantee in one …